"And now he's ferrying around tourists," James Crower said.

"Nothing wrong with that," Lopez said. "He did his tour like all of us."

"I'm not criticizing," Crower said. "Hell, I'm envious. I was a hopper jockey myself. Now I sell carpet. I'd trade."

"I'm in the market for carpet," Grade said.

"Then this is a lucky a day for one of us," Crower said.

"Speak of the devil," Leff said, and pointed toward the front of the room. "It looks like Captain Lehane is going to say something."

Creek craned his head and saw a youngish man in a white dress uniform—the uniform of the Haysbert-American line—standing and banging a fork lightly against a wine goblet. The room, full of chatter, settled down quickly.

"Fellow veterans," Lehane said. "Soldiers, marines, midshipmen, and yes, even officers"—this got a laugh—"I welcome you to the Neverland." This line brought applause; Lehane smiled and let it go on for a few seconds and then held up his hand to settle it back down.

"All of us are here for a reason," he said.

"To drink!" someone yelled from the back. The crowd roared.

Lehane smiled again. "All right, two reasons. The other reason is to honor our friends and comrades who fell on the field at Pajmhi. More than a decade has passed since we—some of us barely out of high school—fought and died in the largest commitment of human armed forces since our planet joined the Common Confederation. In that time, many things have been said about the Battle of Pajmhi. Many things have been said against it. But not once has anyone doubted the courage of the men and women who fought and died there. We above all people know this truth, and of the brotherhood and sisterhood formed between us in that fight, that exists now among those of us who lived, and that calls us to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their planet and their fellow soldier." He raised his goblet. "To our brothers and sisters."

"To our brothers and sisters," came back to him from every table. Everyone drank.

"As you know," Lehane continued, "Chagfun is a special port of call for this journey of the Neverland, and we have arranged for a memorial ceremony on the plain of Pajmhi. I hope to see each of you there. Before and after that, of course, you'll be able to enjoy yourselves at all our usual ports of call, and with the Neverland's onboard activities. Because as my friend at the back of the room noted, while we remember our compatriots, there's nothing wrong with having fun as well. So for the crew of the Neverland, again, welcome, and enjoy yourselves. Thank you." He sat at his table to applause. Waiters came out from the sides of the room to begin delivering salads.

"That was well done," Grade said.

"Told you he was good," Leff said.

"How are we going to have a ceremony on the plain of Pajmhi?" Lopez said. "I thought those Nidu planet crackers wiped it off the face of the planet."

"Yes and no," Leff said, and leaned back to let the waiter deliver his salad. "The plain is still there. The only difference is now it's under about one hundred meters of freshly laid rock. That's from the lava flow after the bomb went off. Our ceremony is going to take place in one of the cooler parts of the rock flow."

"You mean there are still warm parts?" Crower said.

"Oh, yes," Leff said. "There's a volcano built up now where the south part of the plain used to be. It's still spewing lava. We're going to be on the north side of the plain."

"Goddamn Nidu," Grade said, and jabbed at his salad.

"Chuck," Evelyn warned.

"Sony, sweetie," Gracie said, then looked ground the table. "But you all know what I'm talking about."

Robin held up her hand. "Hi," she said. "Actually, I don't. What do the Nidu have to do with this battle?"

Gracie looked at Robin, chewed thoughtfully on his salad, and then looked over to Creek. "You didn't tell her anything about it?"

"The relationship is still pretty new," Creek said.

"We're still picking up the parcels," Robin said.

Gracie looked around. "Anyone mind if I give a brief review?" When no one complained, he continued. "The short story is that the planet Chagfun is a Nidu colony, and about twenty years ago, the Chagfun natives started getting uppity. For about six, seven of those years, it was small-scale terrorist stuff—homemade bombs, exploding markets, assassination attempts. Nothing the Nidu can't handle on their own. But then something happened that made the Nidu sit up: The local Nidu military commanders took the side of the Chagfun natives and took their weapons with them. Which is something that's absolutely not supposed to happen."

"Why not?" Robin said.

"It's because of the Nidu hierarchy," Leff said, cutting in. "The Nidu are a caste-bound culture, grouped in clans that are incredibly suspicious of each other. The current ruling clan keeps control of everything—and I do mean everything—through a computer network. Every single piece of military and government equipment is tied into the network, right down the rifles the Nidu issue to their infantry. The power structure is top down, so commanding officers have control over every decision that gets made. It goes right up to the top. If the leader of the Nidu wanted, he could make a specific rifle on a battlefield stop working, just by ordering it."

"What happens if the soldier gets cut off from the network?" Robin asked.

"His rifle stops working," Leff said. "Or his transport, or his ship, whatever. It's the way the Nidu hierarchy keeps control."

"Except that in this case," Grade said, stealing back the conversational ball, "somehow the local commanders appeared to disengage themselves from the Nidu network and keep their rifles working. And their ships. So they take them offline and Chagfun declares itself independent. Nidu declares war—"

"—and because Earth signed a mutual defense treaty, we get dragged into it," Lopez said. "And we end up fighting Nidu's civil war for them."

"Not that our Defense Department was complaining," Crower said.

"No, not at all," Gracie said. "Defense was looking to show off Earth military readiness. So we do a joint military operation with the Nidu, and because it's Nidu's party, they're in charge of the show. There's just one problem."

Robin waited for a minute for Grade to continue, but he was clearly enjoying his dramatic pause. Finally, Robin said, "Yes? And the problem was what?"

Gracie opened his mouth to speak but Leff got there first. "The problem was that the Chagfun rebels weren't actually disconnected from the Nidu network. They'd stopped the Nidu leadership from commanding their equipment, but they could still eavesdrop on the network."

"So they knew every move the Nidu were going to have us make," Gracie said. He stuffed more salad into his mouth.

"That's bad," Robin said.

"It was very bad," Lopez said. "We landed 100,000 troops on the plain of Pajmhi because Nidu intelligence told us it was an ideal staging area. It was supposed to be away from the main concentrations of rebel troops, with sympathetic civilians in the local towns who wouldn't cause us any trouble. But the rebels knew we were coming and were ready for us. They hit us while we were still getting organized. There was no way we could mount an effective defense."

"It was a real clusterfuck," Gracie said.

"Chuck," Evelyn Gracie said.

"Your husband's right, Mrs. Gracie," Lopez said. "There were 23,000 killed and about that number wounded. When half of your troops are casualties, clusterfuck is the right term for it."

"Thank you, Lopez," Gracie said, and pointed to one of the ribbon bars on his uniform with his salad fork. "I got shot at Pajmhi; took a slug in the leg. Damn near tore the leg clean off. I figure I can use the term clusterfuck if I want,"

"So what happened?" Robin said.